Heretofore, blood has been drawn from a patient for testing by puncturing the finger tip pad at the fleshy inner side of the finger by cutting the pad with a sharp knife, or a needle and this puncture was made by a quick jab of the puncturing element into the finger pad to cause bleeding. However, this operation was not always accurately performed and resulted in unnecessarily hazardous penetration of the flesh and painful reaction by the patient.
The finger to be punctured was tightly held by the nurse, or technician performing the operation and sometimes the users of this method would miss the finger pad of the patient and jab their own finger and create a possibility of serious contamination by mixing two blood types, or by contaminating the puncturing instrument itself. Some prior devices have been spring driven in an axial direction to puncture the finger tip pad by a knife, or pin, that first had to be retracted to cock the puncturing device and when released was forcefully driven into the pad, sometimes unnecessarily deep and at times striking the bone with attendant pain to the patient.
Some doctors, or nurses, have at times drawn blood for testing by using a knife, or scalpel, with which they made a cut into the finger pad, but this too was painful to the patient and sometimes left a wound that entailed a prolonged period of healing. All such prior methods of drawing blood for tests were somewhat haphazard and entailed risks and pain to the patient and the devices, where utilized for repeated use, necessarily had to be sterilized before each use.